president feel that the law is safe or does he believe that it must clear another hurdle in the november election to take full effect? >> you know, chris, one thing that is great about our system is when the supreme court rules we have a final answer. the law is constitutional. it stands. we will proceed as we were proceeding to implement the law. the thing that the american people want is for the divisive debate on healthcare to stop. we already see that with the implementation to date of the health bill that there are are benefits that people are starting to see in their every day life. when the kids graduate from college and before they get a job they still have health insurance. people on medicare who fell no the doughnut hole and had $600 of bills to pay on prescription drugs are covered. families with children with preexisting conditions don't have to worry about whether they will qualify or hit lifetime limits. >> chris: you say the debate should stop. you know it is not going to stop. republicans including governor

romney are talking about repeal and replace. are you saying that is wrong? >> any one who wants to repeal has to explain to the people i described why they will lose the benefits that they are already getting. why the kids are going to lose coverage on the health insurance and why the doughnut hole will come back. and as far as the debate, i understand there remains disagreement. the question is if you want certainty and want to tell the business community and individuals that we are going forward you can calm things down and say we are going to give it a chance and implement it. that is what we do in this country once we have a law pass the congress and once we have the supreme court uphold it. others might choose to have a debate. i actually think the american people want us to focus on the economy and creating jobs and moving forward. we send congress plans which if they were enacted would have created a million nor jobs for teachers, firemen, policemen in home refinancing and building our roads. it is time to move on to the agenda that the american people want us to be worrying about. >> chris: but mr. lew the fact is that a lot of republicans

believe and governor romney believes that having all of this regulation and having all of these taxes and mandates in fact is hurting jobs and a lot of businesses say i don't know if i can hire somebody because of the fact it is going to cost me more none any because of their healthcare. >> if there is going to be a debate about taxes we welcome that debate. under this administration we he cut taxes for middle class families by $3,600. in the healthcare bill it cuts taxes for are middle class families another $4,000. the only thing in the bill that puts a burden on individuals to pay more is a penalty for those who can afford insurance and choose not to by it. and to be clear that is 1% of the population. in massachusetts where this was tested in the plan that governor romney put in place, 1% of the population ended up paying the penalty. the congressional budget office looked at this and when they looked at the federal law they said that would be roughly the same amount. 1%. for the other 99% it means

security they and their family gets coverage. it means that the benefits that they get will offer better coverage and means they don't have to worry if somebody gets sick they will lose their health insurance. we should get on with implementation. >> chris: if i may, mr. lew, during the 2008 campaign the president made complices. the republican national committee since the ruling by the chief justice that the mandate is a tax, they have put out a video noting what the president said to voters when was campaigning in 2008. let's watch. >> if you are a family making less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes go up. >> you will not see one dime's worth of tax increase. any form of tax increase. >> chris: question, didn't the president break that promise? >> well, chris, you know, if you go back and you look at the laws that have been enacted since the president has taken office we have cut taxes for those families. are we have reduced their

taxes. >> chris: but you this is going raise taxes for the families. >> that is not what the supreme court said. they said it it was constitutional. and didn't matter congress called it. it was a penalty for 1%. >> chris: wait a minute, sir. mr. lew, they called it a tax. >> technically what they said is congress has many powers there is the commerce clause and taxing powers and it was constitutional. >> chris: i can't let you go there. it specifically said it is not constitutional under the commerce clause and it is under the tax. as to raising taxes for the middle class. let's look at the record. the nonpartisan congressional budget office estimates in 2016, 4 million americans will pay the mandate penalty or tax. 75% of those people will make less than $120,000 a year and the cbo says between 2012 and 2021 those folks will pay $27 billion in additional

taxes. so if i may just finish my question and then i promise i will let you talk. the middle class is taking quite a hit by what the supreme court said is a tax. >> i think if you look at all of the laws enacted in the last three and a half years you would see that the families have a tax cut. all of the independent analysts whether it is the congressional budget office or others would validate there has been a tax cut. >> chris: i'm not arguing that. all i'm saying is this is a tax increase on the middle class of $27 billion over the next ten years. >> no, what this is, this is a law that says is if you can afford insurance and you choose not to buy it and you choose to have your health costs be a burden to others you will pay a penalty so that you will pay your fair share. that is what this law says. for the 99% of the people who buy insurance or get it through the tax cuts that are this this act they are not going to be affected. you keep your insurance you don't pay any kind of penalty. the very few people who decide to be free riders and not have

insurance but still have their costs go into the system so the rest of us pay it there is a penalty. it is not a burden on the middle class. >> chris: well, again, the nonpartisan cbo says 4 million americans will be paying that tax by 2016. and let's look at why chief justice roberts called it a tax. it will be collected and enforced by the internal revenue service. what you pay is calculated as a percentage of your income and here is what the president's lawyer the solicitor general told the court in defending the mandate. >> not only is it fair to read this as an exercise of the tax power but this court has an obligation to construe it as an exercise of the tax power. >> chris: mr. lew if it looks, talks and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. >> one of the things about our

judicial system is you can make arguments to the court on multiple grounds. that is what don was doing. he is saying there was a lot of ways to look at this. it was set up and not called a tax but there are powers that congress has and you can justify a law under multiple ways. ers it is something people choose whether or not to be subject to. most americans want health insurance. 99% take advantage of the fact that they have affordable coverage to protect their families. for the 1% that choose not to have insurance they don't control whether they will be in an accident or struck by illness. if they end up in a hospital and have to have expensive treatment those costs will be borne by other people who pay for insurance. the penalty says you cannot go without any payment and the penalty is that payment. very few you people will choose it. in massachusetts 1% of people chose to pay the penalty

instead of pay insurance. people want health insurance. >> chris: there are lots of taxes that people choose to pay or not depending on their actions. the cigarette tax i don't pay because i don't smoke. maybe some do because they do smoke. plenty of taxes discretionary in terms of what your behavior is. would you agree in chief justice roberts ruling he said this is constitutional only as a tax? >> what the opinion said is that there are multiple powers that congress has to make law and this law is constitutional. >> chris: that is not what he said, sir. i will move ahead. the court also said that states don't have to expand medicaid as obama care requires. a number of republican governors medicaid rather. a number of republican governors say they may opt out. in they do what happens to the millions of folks who are going to fall under the mandatory expansion of medicaid up to 133% of the poverty level and

doesn't that in fact prevent if some of those governors opt out doesn't that prevent universal coverage? >> chris, i for the life of me don't understand why a governor would refuse to let the people in their state take advantage of medicaid coverage that is 100% paid for out of the federal budget. >> chris: but only for the first two years. >> and then it is close to 100%. it is in the 90% range. i think if you look at the history of medicaid in the 1960s, when it was created, in the 1990s when the child health program was put into place, over time states all choose to come in. now, it doesn't all happen at once. i think the vast majority of states will come in right away. that is the right thing to do and that is what i think most states will do. governors will have to make the decisions. the whole law is built around states having a lot of flexibility to implement the whole health law in different ways that are work in their own state. we have actually prohe posed

legislation to give more flexibility to the states. this is a law that will cover millions and millions of people who don't now have health insurance and i hope that the states come around those few states that are slow to accept this coverage and add it. >> chris: and what would you say to a governor considering now that they have the option decides i'm not going to get involved with that because i think it will cost me down the line? >> i think those governors have to answer to the people in their state. you know, if you look at the people who are going be eligible these are working people who are low wages who don't have healthcare. they are exactly the kind of people most governors should want to help. >> chris: let's start -- some would say we have already been talking about it. let's turn to the politics of this. governor romney says that he will end obama care on day one of the presidency and says it raises taxes by $500 billion and cuts medicare by $500 billion and adds trillions of dollars to the denver he sit. are you happy to see -- deficit. are you happy to see obama care

be a referendum this this election? >> i think the facts are different than that. the congressional budget office made clear that the healthcare law saves not spends money. it puts important mechanisms in place to help get control of healthcare spending more broadly. when was governor of massachusetts governor romney put a plan in place that has many of the features that the affordable care act makes available on a national basis. massachusetts is actually one of the states that will be eligible almost immediately because of that. i don't think the american people want to have this debate again. i don't think they want to be pulled back to decades of debate to get to where we are. we now have are a law. the law is constitutional. we should implement it. the president has said on many occasions he wants to work across party lines if there are things that can be done to improve the law. that is the conversation we should be having and we need to move on and deal with the economy and jobs and put our efforts on creating opportunity for americans to be employed. >> chris: we are running out of time.

i have a couple of quick questions on other issues. the justice department told the house on friday that it will not prosecute attorney general holder on the house's citation of holder for criminal contempt. did the president approve that decision? >> well, executive privilege has to be invoked by the president and then the justice department relied on opinion from the regan administration which is that you don't prosecution once executive privilege is invoked. so the justice department made that decision as has every administration relying on the regan opinion. >> chris: does the president think that is right for the justice department to ignore the house's citing of holder for contempt? >> i think that we have made clear that we think that the actions of the house were political that they were not based in fact. you go back to what is at issue here. the facts of fast and furious. it was a bad procedure to run guns to mexico. it started in the bush administration in the regional office. the attorney general didn't know about it.

when learned about it he stopped it because it is wrong. he has given all of the information to congress to understand what has happened up until that point. there is now a fishing expedition for documents that get well beyond finding those facts. >> chris: i'm going to move on but we do have to point out the fact is that in february of 2011, two months after the border patrol agent brian terry died it was the justice department that sent a letter to congress denying that this operation existed. that did create some of the confusion. >> and chris, just to finish that story, the attorney general made clear he did not know about it before that. that letter would not have gone if washington -- if the attorney general in washington knew about it. something bad was going on. the justice department recognized it and the attorney general stopped it. >> chris: it did take 11 months for the justice department to retract the letter. if i may just ask you one last question, sir. in the investigation of national security leaks that the pentagon has ordered all of

the top relevant officials to preserve all of their documents, the director of national intelligence says relevant agents must take lie detector tests. as chief of staff have you ordered either of those steps with your staff? >> chris, i can't speak to the details of how investigations are being responded to because as you know those details themselves are classified. but i can tell you that there is -- >> chris: wait a minute. it is out there that the pentagon is ordering documents be preserved and the dni is having polygraph test. that is not classified. >> there will be full cooperation and the fact of the matter is that the president feels very strongly that we need to find out where these leaks happened. he relies on classified information every day to make life and death decisions. there is nobody who is more concerned about where this goes on than the president. >> chris: does he feel so strongly that he will agree to

questioning himself? >> i'm not going speak to the details of how the investigation will be handled. >> chris: we have to leave it there. mr. lew, thank you so much for joining us as always. thank you for being here are. >> pleasure to be with you, chris. >> chris: how republicans will try to repeal obama care and what they will put in its place.

>> chris: we want to get the gop view of this week's big decision on obama care. joining us now from his home state of kentucky is senate republican leader mitch mcconnell. senator, welcome back. >> good morning. >> chris: you just heard white house chief of staff jack lew

say the court has spoken and it is time to move on. are you per situated? >> he is doing the best he can with a really tough situation. the president said it was not a tax. the supreme court which has the final say says it is a tax. the tax is going be levied, 77% of it, on americans making less than $120,000 a year. it is a middle class tax cut -- tax increase. beyond that, chris, the core of the bill it is worth reminding people is half a trillion dollars in cuts to medicare. that is hospitals, nursing homes. home healthcare. and the like. $500 billion tax increase. the congressional budget office says it is also a job killer that it will cost the economy between 800,000 and a million jobs. this is the single worst piece of legislation that has been passed certainly in modern times. and it will be an issue a big

issue in the fall election. i think the chief justice basically said this is up to the american people to decide. we have one last chance here to defeat obama care. we can do that in the november election. >> chris: now, since the supreme court justice chief justice roberts came out with his ruling declareing that the mandate is actual lay tax you have been hammering the president for imposing a new tax on the middle class. but mitt romney has a mandate in his massachusetts healthcare reform plan and the people in massachusetts paid more than $20 million last year in that mandate penalty tax whatever you want to call it so isn't that a romney tax on the middle class. in. >> i have two thoughts dallas. number one, that was a decision and not a national decision. every democratic senator voted for obama care.

it passed with not a vote to spare. every single democratic incumbent on the ballot this november was the deciding vote to pass this bill. this law is deeply unpopular with the american people. these senate races across america will, indeed, be a referendum on this job-killing healthcare tax increasing measure. >> chris: but if i may, sir,, you didn't answer my direct question. if the obama mandate is a tax on the middle class, isn't the romney mandate a tax on the middle class? >> well, i think governor romney will have to speak for himself about what was done in massachusetts. i can tell you that every single democratic senator voted for this tax increase and these $500 billion cuts in medicare and it will be a huge issue in 2012. the chief justice has in effect said this will be decided by the american people. that is why we have elections. and we will have one the first tuesday in november. >> chris: all right, let's move on.

if voters elect a republican president and a republican senate, your top priority will be you say to repeal and replace obama care. and i want to drill down into that with you. one of the keys to obama care is that it will extend insurance access to 30 million people who are now uninsured. in your replacement how would you provide universal cove cov? >> the sing the best thing we can do for the american healthcare system is get rid of obama care and the half a trillion dollars of medicare cuts and get rid of the half a trillion dollars in tax. the single biggest step we could take in the direction of improving american healthcare is to get rid of this monestrousity. >> chris: you talk about repeal and replace. how would you provide universal cover andage? >> i will get to it in a minute. the first step to take is to get rid of what is there this

job-killing proposal that has all of these cuts to existing healthcare providers. secondly, we need to go step by step to replace it with more modest reforms that will not be a 2700-page republican alternative. we will not take a meat axe to the american healthcare system. we will pull out a scalpel and go step by step and make the kinds of more modest changes that would deal with the principle issue which is costs. things like interstate sales of health insurance. right now you don't have competition around the country in the selling of health insurance. that is a mistake. things like lawsuit reform. billions and billions of dollars are lost every year by hospitals and doctors in defense of medicine. >> chris: respectfully sir, we are going to run out of time and just want to ask what specifically are you going to do to provide universal

coverage to the 30 million people who are uninsured? >> that is not the issue. the question is how can you go step by step to improve the american healthcare system. it is already the finest healthcare system in the world. >> chris: but you don't think the 30 million -- >> what our friends on the other. >> chris: you don't think 30 million americans uninsured is an issue? >> let me tell you what we are not going to do. we are not going to turn the american healthcare system into a western european system. that is exactly what is at the heart of obama care. they want to have the federal government take over all of american healthcare. the federal government can't handle the healthcare it has already got. medicare is in trouble already. medicaid is in trouble already. we need do clean up the healthcare the federal government is already responsible for before we start immodestly trying to take over all of american healthcare. that is a big step in the wrong direction. >> chris: obama care guarantees that people who have preexisting conditions and who don't currently have health insurance cannot be denied

coverage because of the preexisting condition. if you repeal obama care how l. you protect the people with preexisting conditions? >> over half of the states that already have the high risk pools that deal with the issue and that is kind of state innovation ought to be encouraged by the federal government. i don't think anybody thinks that the federal government can take over the whole area. all of healthcare for 300 million americans and make it better. we can't even handle the healthcare we have already got. that is the kind of thing that ought to be dealt with at the state level and we he ought to be encouraging that. >> chris: insurance companies say they can't afford to make this deal that they are going to take anybody even if they have a preexisting condition unless they get all of those customers the millions of customers from the mandate. >> that is what the state-based high risk pools are for, chris. that is exactly what i'm saying. >> chris: and you are saying that that would take care of people who don't have insurance who want to get insurance but are being denied it because of a preexisting condition? >> i'm saying that this ought

to be dealt with at the state level by the state-based high risk pools that over half the states i believe have already developed. >> chris: even if you win a majority in the senate chances are that democrats are still going to have enough votes to be able to conduct a filibuster and some of your republican colleagues are suggesting that the way even with the republican majority but not a filibuster proof majority that you you can undo obama care is through a budget process called reconciliation where you only need 51 votes. >> right. >> chris: that is what the democrats used, the 51 vote reconciliation to pass obama care. would you you consider using reconciliation to undo it? >> yeah, the chief justice said it is a tax and taxes are clearly what we call reconcilable. the kind of measure that can be pursued with 51 votes in the senate and film' the leader of the majority next year i commit to the american people that the repeal of obama care will be

job one. by the way, i think we will also be insisting that we have a vote on obama care again before the election. but in terms of achieving it, it would take a different senate with a different majority leader and a different president. but, yes, that could be done with a simple 51 votes. >> chris: the reason i ask is because when they were passing obama care through reconciliation you were very upset with this and you called it secretive, antidemocratic, hyper partisan. why the difference? >> the first time it passed the senate it didn't pass through reconciliation. it got 60 votes. there were 60 democrats and 40 republicans they were able to pass permanent law. look, reconciliation is available because the supreme court has now declared it a tax. they have unearthed the massive deheception that was practiced by the president and the democrats constantly denying it was a tax. you heard the president chief of staff continue to try to deny it was a tax just this

morning as the supreme court, the chief justice has made it clear it is a tax. and as a tax it is eligible for reconciliation. >> chris: i want to ask you finally about chief justice roberts' ruling. some conservatives are calling him a traitor for saving obama care but some other conservatives are noting that he sharply curtails congress' ability to use the commerce clause to regulate everything. he sharply curtails the federal government's ability to tell states what they have to do or punish them if they don't. how do you read the roberts' ruling? >> well, it was deeply disappointing. i think justice kennedy got it right. he found both the individual mandate and medicaid mandate unconstitutional and said clearly congress would not have passed the rest of it without the two pillars which he found unconstitutional. he and three others, hour of them, justices -- four of them justices agreed that the whole

thing should be replaced. i'm sorry that didn't happen. this is a huge mistake for the country and chief justices declared it a tax and therefore he has upheld it. now, the american people will have the final decision and i'm confident they will give us the votes to repeal it. >> chris: do you not see anything for conservatives in what justice roberts said about the commerce clause and the federal ability to dictate to state hass they must and must not do? >> i agree with that and, of course, the other four justices felt that way as well. >> chris: we to leave it there. senator mcconnell thank you for coming in. we will stay on top of this debate straight through to november. >> okay. thank you. >> chris: coming up, our sunday panel tackles the future of obama care. chief justice roberts' controversial ruling. and later, what it means for the 2012 presidential race. ♪ [ male announcer ] if a phone rings at your car insurance company

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by now that i didn't do this because it was good politics. i did it because i believed it was good for the country. >> the supreme court ruling did absolutely nothing to improve the president's failed healthcare law. it remains unworkable. unaffordable. and very unpopular. >> chris: president obama taking advantage of a second chance to try to persuade voters they will like obama care while republican senator john barasso is having none of it. time for our sunday panel. well, chief justice roberts ruling clearly closes off the legal avenue as a way to overturn obama care. but it clearly as we could hear today doesn't end the political debate. brit where is obama care now? how secure is it as a big government program that is going go forward?

>> as a political/september matter it is more vulnerable to repeal. this being a tax opens the possibility that it can be dealt with acted on potentially repealed using a process called budget reconciliation which means no filibuster allowed. a simple majority of 51 is enough to undo the law. and further more, in terms of the popularity of the law, in jack lew's interview with you was a classic illustration of this, this is going to do nothing for the law's popularity. already unpopular. now, it turns out it will involve a sizeable tax increase. and the administration is terribly eager not have that get around as you can see. so as a political/legislative matter the law is on shakier ground. if they upheld it under the commerce clause that would have been a different proposition? >> chris: liz, how secure is

obama care? >> i'm not totally sure i agree with that. it is unclear exactly how easy it is going to be for republicans to repeal the whole thing using reconciliation. perhaps now because the mandate has been labeled a tax if that portion can be repealed but there is other parts of the law the sort of directive to insurance companies you can't deny coverage to people with existing conditions. if they can't get that through reconciliation it could create a bigger mess to defund the parts, republicans talk about de-funding it. it could create a bigger mess which then mitt romney and the republican senate would be responsible for. >> this is the way this penalty slash which we now know is a tax was a way to fund that whole provision that says you can't deny coverage based on preexisting conditions. i don't think there is any reason why that couldn't be undone as well under reconciliation. they are intertwined.

>> democrats think you take the budget issue out but they are separate from other parts of the law and if the democrats can block the other parts it creates a bigger mess. i'm not sure it will be so easy even with 50 other votes in the senate. >> chris: i want to ask you, be shannon, basically the same question i asked mitch mcconnell because the legal world is still debating the long-term effects of the roberts ruling. on the one hand, he saved obama care that is a big deal and that is the bottom line. on the other hand he appeared to set new limits on what congress can regulate or not under the guise of the commerce clause and set new limits on what the federal government can mandate that states have to do in terms of its long-term constitutional implications how do you read the roberts ruling? >> i think it will be tough for any one who wants to pass a similar program under the similar argument. this is not going be an easy opinion for anybody to cited to. a lot of people see it as a 1-4-4 decision. if anything there was strong

decision. >> chris: meaning the chief justice was here and then the four liberals and four conservatives. >> right. it will be tough to look to it as a top precedent for making similar arguments. he has tough language saying it is not a right to regulate on individual from cradle to grave and reeled that in and talked about the fact this was a tax and constantly turned it back it sounds like to the legislative process. he said the court doesn't express any opinion on the affordable care act. that constitution is referred to the judgment of the people. several that make it sounds like this goes back to your legislator. if you don't like them, address it with them. >> chris: let me ask you a question about that because you know the court far better than i do. is that unusual for a justice to say we may not like this but it is up to the voters. almost seemed like an invitation to say overturn obama care but you have to do it at the polls. >> some people say this is a minefield that roberts tucked? say listen he he did provide it

but provided a lot of tools and potential outs for those that don't like this. ways to go after this. he he is sentencingly was saying i don't get to the merits of whether this is a good law. i tell you to take it up elsewhere are. >> chris: charles you are long-time court watcher. how significant is this ruling? >> i have been watching john roberts ever since he was arguing cases as a lawyer and i always had the impression that while everyone else is playing checkers john roberts is playing chess and what he has done in the brilliant opinion is sacrifice a pawn called the individual mandate to put the entire great society in check and done that by getting two liberal justices to agree with him in a 7-2 ruling there are serious limitations on the federal government ability to use its spending power to get the states to cooperate in welfare and education programs which is how a lot of things work including education and medicare et cetera. and he has done that and gotten

liberals to applaud him for. next term when the voting rights act come up before the court and they are going to and he votes with the conservatives to strike them down all the liberals will now have to acknowledge that this fair minded statesman john roberts was involved in that decision. this is a man of great brillance and all the conservatives griping about the ruling need to give it a second thought. >> chris: shannon, as our court watcher there is a lot of chatter in washington right how to that perhaps roberts switched his vote and was at first on the side of the conservatives and switched to the side of the so-called liberals on the court and may have been cowed by outside liberals saying if he went with the conservative this would show how conservative the court was. do you buy any of that? do you believe that he switched his vote? >> i think it is a very legitimate theory to be considered. if you think about the fact that the president from the rose guarden in april actually

publicly called out the court and said he was confident they wouldn't do something so unprecedented that's. although we know it is not unprecedented. senator patrick leahy went to the floor and railed on roberts and talked about citizens united and the fact that the court was basically losing the confidence of the american people. you you read the dissent it sounds as if it was written as a majority decision. did they have his vote and lose it at some point, this there is some points to suggest that is credible. >> chris: i got my advance copy of time magazine, roberts rules. do you ex-about! to see the mainstream media revise the opinion of roberts? >> for awhile. i think it is reasonable to say whether he switched his vote or not this decision that he reached was more institutional than constitutional. the matter of it being a tax i

think required some really strained reasoning and i read the portion of the opinion in which he makes the case that this really has the ear marks of a tax and it does have some and then read the dissent on that. oh, boy. the dissent is much more compelling on that. i think it was strained piece of legal reasoning and i think it was a tactical and strategic piece of jurisprudence that i agree laid some minefields and i like chuck's suggestion that roberts is playing chess here and everybody else is playing checkers. >> chris: you had a final comment? >> i would say that those who might suggest there is something sort of pedofogish about the opinion and it is all a bunch of legal measure to me, they are right and roberts see it as more important to secure long-term objectives and more importantly to get liberals to buy into them so they can't

complain when unfolds his larger plan later on. >> chris: we continue our discussion of the historic obama care ruling and dig into what it means for the presidential race. also, get a free flight. you know that comes with a private island? really? no. it comes with a hat. see, airline credit cards promise flights for 25,000 miles, but... [ man ] there's never any seats for 25,000 miles. frustrating, isn't it? but that won't happen with the capital onventure card. you can book any aiine, anytime. hey, i just said that. after all, isn't traveling hard enough? ow! [ male annncer ] to get thelights you want, sign up for a venture card at capitalone.com. what's in your wallet? uh, it's ok. i've played a pilot before.

this idea has enjoyed support from members of both parties including the current nominee for president. >> if we want to get rid of obama care we have to replace president obama. my mission is to make sure we do exactly that. >> chris: president obama and governor romney wasting no time into turning the supreme court ruling into a political weapon. congressional republicans have picked up on chief justice

roberts ruling that the mandate is actually a tax. and say that president obama broke his pledge during the campaign not to raise any taxes on the middle class. liz, how effective is that argument? eis specially given the fact that romney then has his own tax problem because he has his own mandate in massachusetts? >> i think there is going to be challenges on both sides. this has been a tricky issue for the obama white house any time you have the white house coming out and saying look we really want to get back to talking about the economy you know this is not a good issue for them. i think there is something to be said for the fact that obama during his own campaign did not campaign for an individual mandate, in fact, campaigned against it. i think in a way this is coming back to hurt him because of that. he campaigned against it and then he passes it. and now has to defend it. the irony, of course, is that now he is having to defend it against somebody who passed one himself in fact who arguably it was romney's signature achievement as governor of massachusetts and i still think that is incredibly awkward for

romney to have to go out there and be the one essentially running away from his own record and trying to attack obama on this. it is tricky for both sides. to some extent we will have new job numbers come out next friday and that will probably shift the conversation again. i do think this will give a new dynamic to the senate races. i think that the republican senate candidates will really try to use the momentum from this to try to push for a return to majority. >> chris: you could see mitch mcconnell saying every single senator who voted for that was voting for tax increase. how do you think particularly in the presidential race, brit, the mandate as a tax plays out? >> i think it burdens it. that is why jack lew acted the way he acted. they won't call it a tax. they are desperate not to call it a tax. they know how politically defeating a tax is. just to respond to what liz was

saying. there is a sub set of voters who will be enormously influenced by their desire to get rid of obama care. how many of them are going to vote for obama because mitt romney has an individual mandate back in his record as governor. my answer to that. not many. he pledged to overturn it and never stopped talking about it ever since. i don't think many people will be persuaded to go the other way because he once was guilty of this. >> chris: charles to the degree that the november election and i think we all agree it will not be the central issue to the degree it becomes a referendum on obama care, on the one part the president can emphasize the parts of the plan that are popular like preexisting conditions orchids can stay on their parent's insurance until they are are 26. on the other hand, romney can say feeds into the whole idea that obama is a big government president? >> i always felt that politically the best result for

the republican party of this supreme court case would be some ruling upholding the mandate and the reason for that is that this election both sides are pursuing as a base mobilizing election. get your loyalists motivated to go to the polls and nothing motivates the republican base like the boogieman of obama care. that is one thing they all agree on. now, you just heard mitt romney or maybe mitch mcconnell say this is our last chance. the supreme court option is exhausted. for those in the republican that are dedicated to getting rid of obama care only one way to do it and that is to go to the polls is in november and vote out all of the democrats. this one regard this is advantage republicans politically. >> chris: i can see that both ways, shannon. if the court had thrown out obama care and said the whole thing is constitutional then you have the constitutional law

lecturer who spent a year on the country time on something that turned out to not be legal. on the other hand is this as charles is suggesting the conservative and tea party activists who have never been keen on that. >> if the thousands outside the court are any indication, many of continued to rally throughout the day clanging the bells and saying this is it, we are awake, you have awakened a sleeping giant. the tea party didn't go away but we are coming back stronger than ever. interesting to try step away from the tight inside the beltway politics of it. i went to the dentist on friday after we got the opinion and he said wow, a huge win for the president yesterday this is great for his campaign. as much as those who quote unquote lost in the opinion on thursday want to have political spin with it to those who aren't as wonky maybe as those sitting here they think the president won big on thursday.

>> her dentist does a great job. beautiful teeth. >> i'm not sure about the political acue men but does a great job on teeth. on the one hand, it would have been a disaster for the president if it had been overturned. on the other hand, somebody said the winners celebrate and the losers mobilize. >> i think it would be worse if it had been overturned. it would have been embarrassing and would have allowed romney to make the argument that essentially obama's whole first time had been wasted and he could have spent the time fixing the economy. i think that would have been the worst outoutcome. the question will be he whether the white house tries to make a concerted effort for the first time ever to sell this bill. >> what! >> chris: i was waiting for that reaction. >> how much speeches did barack obama make in support of this proposition before the bill passed? he made dozens of speeches. listen this is a problem that

the dogs don't like the dog food. it is not because the ad campaign hasn't worked very well. the bill has been consistently unpopular by similar margins since before it was pass and remains so today and the idea that because it is constitutional and legitimate and a tax is not going to help it. >> i agree and i think there is something problematic when you have people from the white house saying look the american people will like the bill once it is fully implemented and then they will realize how great it really is but we can't sell it until then. >> and you cannot underestimate the extent to which businesses all over the country feel this is a drag on their planning. it is a deterrent to hiring and so forth. and it feeds then into the other big issue, the bigger issue which is the economy. and the think these two things go together and i think they are unmistakably burdensome to the president in his

reeelection choice if the two campaigns could reach a deal where neither had to talk about healthcare reform for the rest of the term they would both be happy. looking back on this when this is all over interesting to reflect on the obama administration decision to take this to the supreme court because they had the option in pursuing it in lower courts a little further. i repeat i think it was a lose-lose proposition for them. they would have lost if they actually lost the ruling and then there would have been the embarrassment that you you talk about. i think they still lose because by having the individual mandate upheld and labeled as a tax by none other than the chief justice of the united states i think mobilizes the party. >> chris: the president is trying to sell it again and again and again. dozens of speeches and hasn't been able to. you heard in that a statement that he made after the ruling talk about you know i did this

because it is good for the country and talk about some of the specific parts. the plurality of americans are against the overall plan but they support some of the individual things like the 26-year-olds on the parents or the preexisting condition and things like that. do you see the white house making another effort, a second effort to make a first impression or are they better off just staying away from obama care? >> i think they continue to try to make the first implex a second time. there were democrats who said this is a gift to us and a chance to sell this in the better way we did last time. their language. brit didn't like it. but that is their language. the house scheduled a full repeal vote. there will be a lot of pressure on them to say what they would replace it with because people do like the individual tenets of this bill and i gop has to weigh carefully in proving they would offer something better. >> i just was going to say and i also do think democrats have an opportunity to say if they want to we are the party that believes in universal coverage

and the republican party does not. look at your interview with mcconnell. it is clear they could make that argument. >> chris: thank you, panel. check our panel plus where we pick up on the discussion. we will post the video before noon eastern time. and follow us on twitter @ "fox news sunday." up next, we hear from you.

>>. >> chris: time for comments you posted to our blog an many of you responded to our interview last week with the executive. i always enjoy t. boone pickens.

>> chris: please keep your comments coming. find us at foxnewssunday.com. have a great week. we'll see you next fox news sunday. , saturday, 2012, huckabee is next. >> tonight on huckabee. >> president barack obama: today's decision means lives will be more secure because of the law and the supreme court's decision to uphold it. >> reporter: the attorney general who sued the federal government challenging obamacare

and, ken cuccinelli and oklahoma's scott group on the legal and political fallout of the landmark ruling. and... >> perhaps the most troubling of all obamacare puts the federal government between you and your doctor. >> doctors siegel and boone on how it affects their patients. >> the health care law hurts our economy, making it harder for small businesses, to hire new workers. >> reporter: small business owners on what it meaps for their business and their employees. ladies and gentlemen, governor mike huckabee. [applause]. >> thank you. thank you very much. welcome to "huckabee" from the fox news studios in new york city. the big thud heard across america thursday morning was the sound of jaws dropping. from coast-to-coast, chief justice john roberts lined up with though most liberal